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Blood Brothers

Blood Brothers

by | Nov 24, 2021

Lyn Paul is on her last outing as Willy Russell’s Mrs Johnstone after first taking on the role in The West End in 1997. Moreover, this week’s run at Woking’s New Victoria Theatre is the last week of the musical’s UK – and Lyn Paul’s farewell tour. To be honest, at 72 years old, COVID or no COVID, she’s lucky to be taking part in her farewell tour, and this casting is the reason for the show not being awarded the full five stars. I know she’s a Blood Brothers ‘legend’ and knows the show inside out but when the young Mrs Johnstone kicks the show off – in a seemingly constant state of pregnancy, the fact that she is now the age of an elderly grandparent cannot realistically be ignored. I’ve seen Lindsay Hateley and Melanie Chisolm (the ex-Spice Girl) play the role; they were both much more suited, age-wise to take on the young Liverpudlian mother.

That said, The ex-New Seeker (I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing) is quite brilliant in the role. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Blood Brothers is about Mrs Johnstone who gives one of her twin babies away to Mrs Lyons – her well-off employer who has discovered she and her husband cannot have children themselves. Hence, Mickey Johnstone and Eddie Lyons grow up apart until fate brings them together… twice. SPOILER ALLERT! – Things don’t end well for the two brothers.

Willy Russell’s iconic musical, loosely adapted from Alexandre Dumas’ The Corsican Brothers (1844) has been critically hailed alongside his other two masterpieces, Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine. The musical content of Blood Brothers is quite brilliant, reprising its tunes throughout. Highlights includes the iconic Marilyn Monroe, Bright New Day, Shoes Upon the Table and the celebrated Tell Me it’s Not True. All the numbers don’t seem to overtake the story and are nicely integrated into the plot.

Russell’s other masterstroke is through the use of a Narrator who comes and goes speaking rhyme throughout. To that end Robbie Scotcher has returned to the role that he excelled in over past years, and makes an imposing figure. I saw Wet Wet Wet’s Marti Pellow play the narrator five years ago but Scotcher has really nailed this part. Elsewhere, as the twins, Alex Patmore (Mickey) and Joel Benedict (Eddie) also give a fine account of the brothers both growing up – Dennis Potter style – and as their eighteen-year-old versions.

Paula Tappenden is delighfully posh as the unhinged Mrs Lyons, Danielle Corlass makes a very pretty Linda and Tim Churchill plays some funny multiple roles including Mr Lyons, the Milkman and Mrs Johnstone’s gynecologist. There are several other multi-role performances going on such as Matt Slack’s two Teachers and a Policeman and Danny Taylor returns to the familiar role as Mickey’s idolised elder brother, Sammy.

It’s powerful stuff and emotionally charged. The show’s climactic final scene is the best I’ve ever seen.

Blood Brothers is extremely popular with amateur companies in usually the non-musical version but when this tour finally ends perhaps we’ll see some amateur productions of the musical.

Educating Rita

Educating Rita

by | Oct 31, 2020

Photo: Nobby Clark

Educating Rita celebrates its 40th birthday this year and it wears its years very lightly. This warm affirmative story about a chirpy hairdresser who wants “to know” and an older, disillusioned, hard-drinking university lecturer still makes pertinent point after point about discovery, individuality, friendship and the power of literature. He never tells Rita that Ezra Pound’s definition of intellectual was “having to know” but that’s what she epitomises.

If anything it’s better and tauter than ever in this abridged 90-minute, no-interval version. Of course the Open University doesn’t operate on weekly face-to-face tutorials and never did, as Willy Russell must know, but it’s a useful plot device and that minor inaccuracy doesn’t matter much.

Both actors adeptly catch the nuances of their developing characters so that nothing is exaggerated or stereotyped. Stephen Tompkinson, fumbles round the stage for his bottles, wearing a slightly too small corduroy jacket speaking in a plummy stentorian voice – showing us the good teacher he once was with his off-pat account of assonance and his definition of “critical”. Jessica Johnson’s Rita bounces colourfully around him being outrageous for the context but gradually becoming a woman with real choice and meeting Frank on his own terms. Their evident rapport as actors is a delight although Johnson’s rather odd high pitched accent (is it meant to be West Midlands or something else?) and her rapid delivery means that occasionally her words are lost.

This enjoyable Theatre by the Lake production, whose tour had to be aborted when the lockdown portcullis fell in March, had a good run at the Minack, Cornwall in August. Its week at the Rose, Kingston is the first stop on its new tour. Producer David Pugh is hoping it will help to reopen as many theatres as possible with socially distanced indoor performances – although given the news on the day of writing that another national lockdown may be imminent who knows?

The Rose has certainly got Covid security organised with temperature checks, queues outside and so on. They also insist on audience members remaining masked throughout although I had four empty seats either side of me, three in front and an aisle behind. This is the new normal and I try not to sigh too loudly. Let’s just be thankful that theatre is happening.

  • : admin
  • : 30/10/2020
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